


The Grass is No Greener

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Backstory, Closeted Character, Engagement, Family Drama, Gen, Headcanon, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, You Can't Go Home Again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: Engaged to Nate, already pregnant with Sam, Maggie realizes she has to break the news of both happenings to her family.  Her brother is surprised to learn she is settling down.  Her parents would be pleased that she's settling down, except for the person she's chosen to settle down with.





	The Grass is No Greener

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maddie_Meraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddie_Meraki/gifts).



> Prompt 2) A defining moment from a character’s past, something that shows how they became who they are today. 
> 
> I've always had a very strong headcanon that Maggie and Nate married looking for what they thought each other could give them - for Nate, Maggie was respectability and elegance, something more than the rough and tumble world he came from.
> 
> For Maggie, Nate was the nice 'normal' guy her family was beginning to despair she would ever find.
> 
> The character of Alexander Collins was born in the fires of Leverageland - the creation of LJ user cardboard_cornea. I love him like he was my own.
> 
> At any rate - thank you for playing with us, Maddie! Hope we see you next year!

Even after a week, the ring felt hopelessly strange on her finger. It was also bigger than she’d thought Nate would be able to afford – he’d told her it was a family heirloom, but it still spoke to the kind of money she’d never suspected he would have access to.

Her mother was going to love it.

“Maggie?”

Her brother had finally cut his hair – the short, white blond spikes were a good look for him. Dark blue eyes were looking at her with so much love and concern that Maggie’s control finally slipped and the tears she’d been holding back began streaming down her cheeks. “Oh Barbie-doll,” he exclaimed, pulling her up out of her chair and into his arms. “Whatever it is, we’ll fix it. I promise.”

It was so sincerely and heartfelt, even before he knew the mess she’d gotten herself into, that Maggie was able to just hold on and let herself cry out all the fears and frustrations she’d had to keep from Nate.

“Just tell me who we need to kill.” Of course, all the compassion in the world couldn’t change the fact that Alexander was her kid brother, with an almost genetic need to wind her up.

Her startled laughter still disturbingly wet-sounding, Maggie pushed herself free – giving Alex the obligatory swat on his chest. “Thank you,” she said, as they each took their seats.

He shrugged. “You 911 me, I’m going to be here. So what’s got you all twisted up? You and that artist you told me about have another fight? I told you over Skype that she sounded like a total diva.” He had been divesting himself of scarf and jacket as he talked, so it took him a second to register Nate’s ring glittering on her finger. “Wait.” Maggie let him take her hand and bring it closer. Alex studied it for a long moment, before looking up at her again. “You didn’t actually agree to marry that dim-wit, did you? Mom and Dad are gonna have a pair of matching strokes!”

“Alex, wait.” _It really has been a while._ Pulling her hand free, Maggie tried to martial what bits of self-control she was able to pull together. “Did I tell you I was doing consulting work for IYS Insurance?” Off his now-confused nod, she pushed ahead. “The ring…and the proposal…” She swallowed hard, dreading saying the words but he was going to have to know. _They’re all going to have to know._ “…and the baby…are from one of the investigators. His name is Nathan Ford. He’s from Boston originally.”

She’d stunned Alexander into total silence. “Boston, huh?” he managed, a micro-second before Maggie would have reached across the table to poke him. “Beacon Hill, or some other socially acceptable part of the city, I’m guessing?”

The sudden bitterness in his voice cut deep. “I’m pregnant, Alex. I can’t just run off to the wilds of Australia and thumb my nose at everything Mom and Dad stand for anymore.” She dashed angrily at the threat of further tears with the back of one hand. “If it helps your rebel cause, Nate’s not from money. He grew up on the south side of the city.”

Her brother snorted openly at that, picking up her hand once more to display the emerald and diamond ring. “If he doesn’t come from money, he’s certainly doing all right for himself.”

Her frustration mounting, Maggie jerked her hand free. “He said it was a family heirloom.” Alex rolled his eyes, slumping in his seat. “Alex, I can’t do this alone. I can’t face her – you know the kind of crap I’m going to get about this.”

“Crap? After years of your partying and dating across the entire gender spectrum, you really think Her Majesty is going to be upset at something like a grandchild conceived out of wedlock?” But some of her brother’s frustration at potentially losing her to the Establishment finally seemed to be fading. Maggie felt her own tensions begin to ease as Alex’s expression softened. “Ah, what the hell. I’m here. You paid for the plane ticket. The least I can do is draw some of the family fire away from you and my future niece or nephew.”  
*************************************************  
Two hours later, the siblings were in Maggie’s convertible, turning onto the street they’d once called home. “How long since you’ve been back?” Alex asked finally, watching the gates of each property as they passed with a haunted expression on his handsome face.

“Dad’s sixtieth birthday,” Maggie told him. “Two years ago – you were on that backpack trip through the jungles of New Guinea, remember?” _Conveniently out of contact. Again._ She wasn’t really angry with how completely her brother had removed himself from the prison of their upbringing. She’d done the same, in her own way – Alex was just better at it than she was.

“It doesn’t change. It never changes.” The gates of their parents’ estate were coming into view; Alex turned in his seat suddenly, looking directly at Maggie for the first time since getting into the car. “Maggie, I’m only asking because you know she will. Are you keeping the kid because you want to, or is this Ford guy pressuring you?”

“Alex, he’s not like that!” Maggie retorted, but the insistence was mostly to cover her awareness that it was a far more complicated question than her brother realized. _Nate was the same way._ He hadn’t pressured her – not really, not in the way she would have expected from a man who had almost been a Jesuit priest – but in his mind it was a cut and dried question with very simple answers. _”We love each other. We’re both young and healthy, and if we go ahead and get married, we can absolutely afford a child.”_ When you mixed in the bubbling mess of her hormones, agreeing to Nate’s logical approach had been easier than taking a genuine look at what she might want from the situation.

“So you want the baby?” Alex prompted.

Rolling down her window, Maggie pulled into her parents’ driveway and punched her personal security code into the gate pad. “Yes,” she told Alex, meeting his gaze squarely. “Any other upsetting questions, or are you ready to do this with me?”

She honestly didn’t know at that point what she would have done if he’d actually asked her another question.

At fifty-nine years of age, Celeste Grainger Collins was a handsome woman. Even on what was ostensibly a casual afternoon at home, she was impeccably dressed – her heavy fall of snow-white hair artfully arranged in a stylish up-do, and her makeup perfect. “Margaret! Alexander!” she exclaimed, as the siblings emerged from Maggie’s car. “My wayward children, home at last!”

Alex stayed slightly in front of Maggie as they mounted the front steps; she let him, welcoming the feeling of having someone who would protect her from all the barbs and attacks that were about to come her way.  
***********************************  
Their mother took them into the sitting room. “Coffee?” she asked, once Alex had taken a seat on the sofa. Maggie had been distracted by a painting hung near the room’s grand piano, but she glanced at her mother long enough to shake her head.

“Is this the piece I gave you for your birthday?” she asked, once the niceties had been observed, and her mother had taken her customary seat in her favorite wing-backed chair.

Celeste nodded, her smile more than a little self-satisfied. “We had the room re-done to shift the focus to it. You have such talent Maggie – I wish your work allowed you to spend more time creating.”

 _Careful…_ Maggie eased onto the couch next to her brother, just in time to see Alex hide a smirk behind a sip of the coffee he’d accepted. “Well, mother, you might just get your wish. That’s part of the reason I wanted to come see you and Daddy.”

One elegantly manicured eyebrow raised slightly. “If it has anything to do with that ring on your finger, I wonder that you brought Alexander with you and not the man who put it there?” She took a studied sip of her own coffee. “Is there something wrong with Mr. Ford, that you don’t want to bring him around?”

Maggie’s heart plummeted. Celeste knowing about the engagement could be explained away by an educated guess on seeing the ring. The fact that she knew Nate’s name… “You never ask a question you don’t know the answer to, mother,” she said, trying not to clench her hands into fists, “so why don’t you tell me?”

“This might be a record,” Alex muttered, taking another sip of his coffee.

“Well, I did promise your father I would wait until he was finished talking to his private detective…”

“A private..?” Maggie was half out of her seat before she stopped herself. “Okay, I don’t know why I’m even surprised,” she concluded, settling down again. “If it’s about his finances, I already know he’s not wealthy enough for you.” 

“Despite what you think, I am not a snob,” her mother snapped. “I do, however, draw the line at the son of a convicted mobster.”

Maggie opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again. _”I’m not close with my family,”_ was all Nate had ever wanted to say on the subject of his parents or his upbringing. Since Maggie hadn’t wanted to talk about her own childhood either, she’d been happy to let the entire matter drop.

 _Of course, that was before I ended up with his ring and his child._  
*****************************************  
Somehow – Maggie still wasn’t sure how – they made it all the way through dinner without the subject of her pregnancy coming up. And in the end it was Alex who broke the news when – having switched from coffee to wine at the first available opportunity – he warned their parents that if they didn’t back off Maggie, they could kiss any shot at knowing their first grandchild good-bye.

“Would have served them right if I had come home engaged to Sylvana,” she grumbled, once she had reached the safety of her room. Servants had already retrieved her bags, which were set in a neat row at the foot of her bed. Grabbing an ancient teddy bear from its place on the shelf, Maggie retreated to the window seat – a favorite place to read and hide when she was younger.

Tucking her legs under her, Maggie hugged the bear to her chest and tried to decide how she felt about everything she had learned. “So your daddy is the son of a mobster, hmm?” She’d already pretty much decided that it didn’t bother her – based on her father’s file, the “Fixer” wasn’t a hardened killer, or anyone really dangerous. _Plus, I’m not marrying his parents; just like he isn’t marrying mine._

A knock on her bedroom door startled Maggie out of her thoughts. “Please go away!” she called, leaning her head against the casement.

“Maggie, it’s me.”

 _Alex. Shit._ She’d been so focused on her own drama that Maggie had fled at the first available opportunity with no thought for the brother she was leaving behind. “Coming!” she called, launching herself off the window seat and running for the door.

Brother and sister, they’d always looked out for each other growing up. Alexander was the younger by two years though, which meant that once Maggie went away to college, he had been on his own for all that time without a defender or any kind of reasonable escape.

If what she saw now, clinging to the door frame, trying desperately to stand, was any indication – he hadn’t handled any of it well. “I think the wine has actually gotten better since I was here last,” he managed to get out, before lurching into her arms.

“I am so sorry,” she said, helping him to the closest chair.

He laughed weakly. “For what? You didn’t deni…denigrate every life choice I ever made. You never said I was worthless…weak…a drain on the family coffers.”

Maggie grimaced as she closed the door, hearing in Alex’s drunken slurred speech the words of her father. “He said my photos were a waste of time and money.” Her brother tried desperately to focus on her as she dragged a chair across the carpet to sit near him. “Did I tell you I got a gallery show? It’s in Auckland, early next year.”

“Alex, that’s fantastic!” Maggie had a few of her brother’s pieces in her apartment. He was talented – there was no doubt about that – but she’d never managed to develop the sort of connections that could have gotten him the proper exposure. “You’ll have to get me the details!”

She didn’t bother adding ‘when you sober up’, because her brother’s eyelids were already drooping. “There’s no chance of you sleeping in your own bed tonight, is there?” she asked.

“’m sorry,” he managed. “Jus’ give me…blanket. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Before Maggie could decide how she felt about his offer, her phone began buzzing for her attention. Pulling it out, she felt relief wash through her like a warm bath. _Nate._ “Hey you,” she greeted him – happier than she’d been in days.

 _”Hey yourself,”_ he said, and she could almost see him smiling. _”Can you talk?”_

Alex chose that very moment to snore softly. Grimacing, Maggie retreated to her seat on the window sill. “Don’t forget there’s three hours between us now. It’s after eleven.”

_”I forgot. Do you want to talk some other time?”_

Three days. Three more days she was supposed to spend here with her parents and Alex and hope somehow that the four of them didn’t manage to tear each other to shreds. “What I’d really like to do,” Maggie said finally, “is hear your views on eloping.”


End file.
